I taught sophomores at Bethlehem Catholic High School for twenty-four years. To this day, I sometimes have doubts as to whether I accomplished anything at all through my teaching. Did my students learn anything from me? I am uncertain. Back in those days, it sometimes seemed that the only tangible results of a day’s work of teaching were the contents of my dustpan after I had swept the classroom floor. Fellow teachers would ask me, “Why are you sweeping the classroom floor? Why don’t you get kids to do that?” “Well,” I’d say, “it’s the only thing I could ever do in a day to which I could point with pride and say, ‘Hey, look what I did!’”
Believe it or not, I found comfort in, of all places, an episode of the old black-and-white television series, The Twilight Zone. I’m not kidding. Some time ago, a friend introduced me to a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone called “The Changing of the Guard.” You can watch the whole thing online. I cry every time I see it, and I guarantee it is well worth your time.
The episode is about old Professor Ellis Fowler, who has been teaching English for more than fifty years at Rock Spring School for Boys in Rock Spring, Vermont. He is, as Rod Serling describes him, “a gentle, bookish guide to the young,” who, three days before Christmas, learns that he is being forced into retirement. Leafing through his old grade books, he becomes convinced that all his lessons were in vain and that he has accomplished nothing with his life. “I gave them nothing,” he says to his housekeeper. “I gave them nothing at all: poetry that left their minds the minute they themselves left; aged slogans that were out of date when I taught them; quotations that were dear to me that were meaningless to them. I was a failure, Mrs. Landers, an abject, miserable failure. I walked from class to class, an old relic, teaching by rote to unhearing ears, unwilling heads. I was an abject, dismal failure. I moved nobody. I motivated nobody. I left no imprint on anybody. Now where do you suppose I ever got the idea that I was accomplishing anything?” Wow! Does that sound familiar!
That evening, old Professor Fowler takes a walk on the snow-covered campus, pistol in pocket, with the obvious intention of committing suicide. He stops before a statue of educator Horace Mann, wipes away the snow from its base, and reads the inscription thereon:
BE ASHAMED TO
DIE UNTIL YOU HAVE
WON SOME VICTORY
FOR
HUMANITY
“I have won no victory,” Ellis Fowler says, “and now I am ashamed to die.” But as he raises the pistol to his head, he hears, inexplicably, the school bell ringing! At night!
Perplexedly, automatically, he heads toward his classroom. He walks in and switches on the lights. After a few moments, he meets the ghosts of seven of his former students, all of whom have died prematurely. One by one, they reintroduce themselves to their former teacher. Artie Beechcroft, who died at Iwo Jima, tells Professor Fowler how he learned courage from his mentor. He proudly shows the old man the Congressional Medal of Honor he won posthumously.
Then there’s Bartlett, Class of 1928, who died of leukemia while doing research on the effects of radiation in the treatment of cancer. Bartlett quotes from memory the words of the poet Howard Arnold Walter, words that he learned from Professor Fowler:
I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
Next, there’s Dickie Weiss, the first of the Professor’s students to leave this world. He met his death at Pearl Harbor aboard the Arizona while saving a dozen men trapped in a boiler room. He says, “You were at my elbow that day, Professor. You may not have known it, but you were there. It was something you taught me, a poem by John Donne, ‘…any mans [sic] death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde [sic], and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’[1]”
Other ghosts tell the professor how he taught them patriotism, courage, loyalty, ethics, and honesty.
Professor Fowler’s vision fades rapidly, but he is left with the enduring conviction that he is not a failure after all. He says to his housekeeper, “I do believe I may have left my mark—a few gauntlets of knowledge that I’ve thrown down that may have been picked up. ‘Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.’ I didn’t win the victories, Mrs. Landers, but I helped others to win them. So perhaps in some small measure, they are victories that I can share.”
Well said, Professor Ellis Fowler! To the extent that we help others to do good, we share in their accomplishments. In Saint Mark’s Gospel, Jesus says, “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you are Christ’s, amen, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.”[2] Saint Matthew’s recollection is even more explicit. Our Lord says:
He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet, shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he who receives a just man because he is a just man, shall receive a just man’s reward. And whoever gives to one of these little ones but a cup of cold water to drink because he is a disciple, amen, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.[3]
When we help someone accomplish good, we will share in the reward for the good that is accomplished. How consoling!
But take heed! The converse is true. When we aid someone in performing evil, we will share in the punishment for the evil that is done. If I help someone accomplish evil, I will be punished, not only for my own evil deeds, but I will also share in the punishment for the other person’s evil. That’s why Jesus declares in His very next breath, “And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it were better for him if a great millstone were hung about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea.”[4] Surely one of the greatest joys of paradise will be to share in the rewards of those we helped to get there! Surely one of the deepest regrets of hell will be to share in the punishment of those we have led astray!
So let us then be very careful how we deal with one another. After all, our interactions with each other are not casual but causal. They will bear fruit, good or ill, not only for ourselves but for others, not only for others but for ourselves. In his well-known address, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis asserts, “It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics….” Yes, Professor Lewis, we must be careful how we treat one another. And the reason can be found in those timeless words of John Donne, words that Professor Ellis Fowler drilled into his students:
…[A]ny mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
[1] From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.
[2] Mark 9:40.
[3] Matthew 10:41-42.
[4] Mark 9:41.